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The emblematic Palau de la Música Catalana was once again the chosen venue for the inauguration ceremony of EADA’s 2014-15 academic year, held on October 6th. In the presence of all the members of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, the International Advisory Board and the students graduating in 2013-14, David Parcerisas, president of the Board of trustees gave an inaugural speech in which he emphasised the international prestige gained by EADA since it was founded back in 1957. Parcerisas stressed the social functions that the business school fulfils, “because it has trained 120,000 of the country’s managers who represent over 5,000 companies and, furthermore, because in addition to knowledge it promotes the values of respect, dignity, equality and solidarity”.

The modernist setting of the Palau de la Música was once again the backdrop for the inauguration of the EADA 2014-15 academic year, where in addition to the institutional speeches, final year students were handed out the prizes to the Best Projects as well as their diplomas.

Objectives accomplished last year

After this, Susana Bleier, secretary of the Board of Trustees of EADA Foundation, went over the most important events of the last school year. Among them it is worth mentioning the fact that over 120,000 participants from over 50 countries have been through EADA’s classrooms, the excellence of the programmes –certified by its EQUIS and AMBA accreditations, by the recent  incorporation of the business school as an official partner of the CFA Institute and by the Financial Times ranking that positions it among the world’s 50 top  business schools in Executive Education and the 25th in Europe–, the agreements with international institutions –such as with HLL in Leipzig, Centrum in Peru, Politécnico de Milán and Tongji University on China–, the joint launching in PriceWaterhouseCoopers of the Executive Development Programme –training adapted to the needs of energy company executives, the first edition of which was taken by 52 managers in Kazakhstan – and also, the commitment with CSR principles –as can be seen from the school’s subscribing to the principles of the UN Global Compact –.

Remembering Steve Jobs

In this edition the guest speaker who gave the keynote lecture Conxa Oliu, the manager of Sabadell Professional and BStartup, focused her speech on Steve Jobs’ reflections in his graduation lecture at Stanford, in 2005. She pointed out that, “Jobs was a great genius, a great entrepreneur, a great innovator and a great business owner, and his words still hold true today and are very useful for future business owners”.

Conxa Oliu, manager of Sabadell Professional and BStartup, in her lecture remembered the IT genius Steve Jobs and highlighted the values and challenges he accomplished and that set an example for future executives.

More specifically, Oliu focused on the key points of Jobs’ speech. As regards the first point, which had to do with connecting the dots, she extended the IT genius’ idea of connecting the dots looking into the past by stressing that one should also do so look into the future: “We need to work with goals, with future challenges, with ambition, knowing where we have come from and where we want to go”. With regard to the second point about passion for what one does, Oliu encouraged participants to take decisions without being afraid of making mistakes “for failure can be transformed into an opportunity and into a new success, as it did in Steve Jobs’ case”. Concerning the third point, on time and death, the manager of Sabadell Professional had this to say, “time has a limit” and that “we must not allow dogmas to silence our inner voice”. And she added: “Be yourself at all times”.

Finally, the event came to a close with the handing out of the Prizes to the Best Projects and the Diplomas to the participants of academic year 2012-13 by EADA’s Head of studies, Dr. Ramon Noguera.